Sunday, April 4, 2010

Calvin on "Lordship Salvation"

The Reformers regarded the doctrine of justification as the cardo (Latin for "hinge") upon which the whole of Christian doctrine hangs. It is the cardinal doctrine based on the words of the Apsotle Paul, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8). So a sinner is justified before God by grace, through faith in Christ.

Now faith consists of three elements: notitia (knowledge of the objective person and work of Christ in the economy of redemption), assensus (belief that these objective facts are true), and fiducia (trusting personally in the efficacy and sufficiency of Christ and His work). These three work together to form the content of saving faith. Remove "fiducia" and you get the Hodges/Ryrie/Stanley formula for antinomian, semi-Pelagian, "free grace" faith, wherein assent to fact is all that's needed to be justified (Lose your faith down the line? No worries. A one-time expression of belief is the sole requirement for salvation. But heavenly rewards? You need lots of good works for that!). On the other hand, replace "fiducia" with "the determination of the will to obey truth" (The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 173) and you get JMac's semi-legalistic, works-based faith. It is clear that the former kind of faith best describes the Apostle James' "devil's faith", warranting no further exposition here, while the latter expression confuses justification with sanctification, something which I believe merits discussion.

Christ's 33 years of life and subsequent death earned for His elect both justification and sanctification. The sinner who puts faith in Christ is justified in the sight of God by virtue of Christ's active and passive obedience; the former fulfilling for him the requirement of perfect holiness/obedience and the latter appeasing the wrath of God. But what of personal obedience and good works? If sanctification is the domain of these two, wherein the Christian is conformed more and more into the likeness of Christ through the Holy Spirit, can a person who appears to lack personal holiness have the assurance of salvation?

Firstly, it must be asserted that the elect, by virtue of union with Christ, must by necessity be justified and sanctified. In other words, sanctification always flows from justification, but they are distinct. This distinction is no small point to make for on it hangs the issue of assurance. Michael Horton states, referring to the "lordship salvation" debate between Hodges and JMac, "This question of assurance is at the root of the present controversy. After all, it is not enough to be saved by grace. We must also have assurance that we are saved by grace" (Christ the Lord, p. 51). Secondly, given this distinction, it is apparent that assurance is chiefly concerned with justification—with the question of "Has my faith really saved me?" Given the Reformed definition of faith above, it can be seen that the nature of saving faith is objective and outward-oriented. It is not one's faith per se that saves, but Christ upon whom this faith rests.

So then, is assurance of salvation grounded on faith itself or on the fruits of faith (obedience and good works)? I will let John Calvin give the answer:

Now if we ask in what way the conscience can be made quiet before God, we shall find the only way to be that unmerited righteousness be conferred upon us as a gift of God. Let us ever bear in mind Solomon's question: "Who will say, 'I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin'?" [Prov. 20:9]. Surely there is no one who is not sunken in infinite filth! Let even the most perfect man descend into his conscience and call his deeds to account, what then will be the outcome for him? Will he sweetly rest as if all things were well composed between him and God and not, rather, be torn by dire torments, since if he judged by works, he will feel grounds for condemnation within himself? The conscience, if it looks to God, must either have sure peace with his judgment or be besieged by the terrors of hell. Therefore we profit nothing in discussing righteousness unless we establish a righteousness so steadfast that it can support our soul in the judgment of God....For no one can ever confidently trust in it [one's obedience—M.H.] because no one will ever come to be really convinced in his own mind that he has satisfied the law, as surely no one ever fully satisfied it through works....First, then, doubt would enter the minds of all men, and at length despair, while each one reckoned for himself how great a weight of debt still pressed upon him, and how far away he was from the condition laid down for him. See faith already oppressed and extinguished!...Therefore, on this point [assurance—M.H.] we must establish, and as it were, deeply fix all our hope, paying no regard to our works, to seek any help from them...For, as regards justification, faith is something merely passive, bringing nothing of ours [not even repentance and a determination of the will to obey—M.H.] to the recovering of God's favor but receiving from Christ that which we lack (Institutes, 3.13.3—5, cited in Michael Horton, Christ the Lord, p. 52—53).

5 comments:

I have one concern with Calvin's quote. Isn't Calvin simply saying that no man can ever hope that his works suffice to fulfill the law of God? I'm not sure that Calvin's saying that we can't look to fruit in our lives as a sign of assurance that we have truly believed.

The "assurance" issue, from what I can understand of it simply asks the question "How do I know I have believed?" To that Macarthur and the Lordship folk would say "You will lead a life of ongoing fruitfulness and love for God." I'm not sure it's works-based so much as it demands that there be evidence of faith (and justification) in the work of progressive sanctification.

Just a thought, brother. Thanks for your work in putting this together!

Anonymous: Let Calvin answer that for you - from the same place as quoted above (but section 5) he says:

"Paul uniformly declares that the conscience can have no peace or quiet joy until it is held for certain that we are justified by faith. And he at the same time declares whence this certainty is derived—viz. when “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,” (Rom. 5:5); as if he had said that our Souls cannot have peace until we are fully assured that we are pleasing to God. Hence he elsewhere exclaims in the person of believers in general, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35).

Until we have reached that haven, the slightest breeze will make us tremble, but so long as the Lord is our Shepherd, we shall walk without fear in the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23). Thus those who pretend that justification by faith consists in being regenerated and made just, by living spiritually, have never tasted the sweetness of grace in trusting that God will be propitious. Hence also, they know no more of praying aright than do the Turks or any other heathen people.

For, as Paul declares, faith is not true, unless it suggest and dictate the delightful name of Father; nay, unless it open our mouths and enable us freely to cry, Abba, Father. This he expresses more clearly in another passage, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him,” (Eph. 3:12). This, certainly, is not obtained by the gift of regeneration, which, as it is always defective in the present state, contains within it many grounds of doubt.

Wherefore, we must have recourse to this remedy; we must hold that the only hope which believers have of the heavenly inheritance is, that being in grafted into the body of Christ, they are justified freely. For, in regard to justification, faith is merely passives bringing nothing of our own to procure the favor of God, but receiving from Christ every thing that we want."

Anonymous, I would suggest that section 5 of The Institutes, Book 3: Chapter 13 shows why looking for fruit is actually counterproductive when it comes to a firm assurance. I attempted to post the section here but it seems not to have worked. In short, if we seek any really firm assurance apart from the work of Christ and the promise of God we are liable to move our faith from him to the (assumed) fruit of the Spirit in our lives. I'll attempt to post it again as a separate post :)

"Paul uniformly declares that the conscience can have no peace or quiet joy until it is held for certain that we are justified by faith. And he at the same time declares whence this certainty is derived—viz. when “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,” (Rom. 5:5); as if he had said that our Souls cannot have peace until we are fully assured that we are pleasing to God. Hence he elsewhere exclaims in the person of believers in general, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35).

Until we have reached that haven, the slightest breeze will make us tremble, but so long as the Lord is our Shepherd, we shall walk without fear in the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23). Thus those who pretend that justification by faith consists in being regenerated and made just, by living spiritually, have never tasted the sweetness of grace in trusting that God will be propitious. Hence also, they know no more of praying aright than do the Turks or any other heathen people. For, as Paul declares, faith is not true, unless it suggest and dictate the delightful name of Father; nay, unless it open our mouths and enable us freely to cry, Abba, Father.

This he expresses more clearly in another passage, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him,” (Eph. 3:12). This, certainly, is not obtained by the gift of regeneration, which, as it is always defective in the present state, contains within it many grounds of doubt. Wherefore, we must have recourse to this remedy; we must hold that the only hope which believers have of the heavenly inheritance is, that being in grafted into the body of Christ, they are justified freely. For, in regard to justification, faith is merely passives bringing nothing of our own to procure the favor of God, but receiving from Christ every thing that we want."

Modern day Calvinists actually differ from Calvin on assurance. They adhere to the Puritan doctrine of assurance that emphasizes evaluation of progress in sanctification as means to assurance over fiducia. For Calvin, fiducia is the essence of assurance and assurance is the essence of saving faith. The Puritan movement, from which the Lordship movement has sprouted, departed from Calvin and went more in the direction of Roman Catholicism, essentially agreeing with Trent on the means to assurance... or, more accurately... that assurance is not truly possible in this life. So you have Godly men like John Bunyan never being assured that they were saved... this is anti-Christ.

The categorical error that was made by the Puritans was a reaction to others who espoused eternal justification and is a reaction today (seen in the Lordship movement) against Easy-Believism. All extreme movements can be traced back to an over-reaction against an error, and with the desire to not be associated with one's opponent in the least, the reactionary side typically throws the baby out with the bathwater. The Puritans threw Calvin's doctrine of double assurance out with the bathwater of ridding the Church of the error of eternal justification. Calvin's answer to both Puritans and Lordship proponents is Fiducia. The categorical error of the Puritans was specifically: antinomian=carnal Christian=no saving faith. The issue is ALWAYS antinomianism, an indifference toward one's sin (1 John.. "If you say you are WITHOUT sin").

For Calvin fiducia is easily seen to be false if there is an indifference to sin, but Calvin would be quick to warn against judging the nature of someone's faith when there is a STRUGGLE with sin and a continued personalizing of Christ's sacrifice for them. For Calvin, it was not about the strength of one's faith but the Object... we persevere by persevering in the personalization of Christ for us. If this is present than shame on anyone who would challenge true faith being present. Calvin went to the other extremem and went so far as to say that anyone who trusts at all on their sanctification as a means to proving their salvation or obtaining it is not saved because they have ceased to trust on Christ fully.

The Puritans were guilty of the error of Preparationism and today we have a soft-preparationism in the Holiness movement. Antinomianism is the problem and easily seen... Easy-Believism is the truth of Scripture, the problem is that from Finney all that has been necessary for saving faith is "notitia" and "assensus", which culminated in a sinner's prayer... the Lordship movement threw out the baby with the bathwater rather than simply adding fiducia back into the equation. Notitia and assensus lead to fiducia and fiducia is the essence of saving faith and assurance.